Three more recently retired heads of Israeli intelligence — Mossad, Shin Bet, and the Israeli military — have spoken out to say that both Israel and the United States should learn to live with an Iranian nuclear weapon.

Three former U.S. CENTCOM commanders — Gen. John Abizaid, Gen. Anthony Zinni, and Adm. William J. Fallon — were the first to reach the same conclusion.

All six are acutely aware of the alternative — Israeli bombing followed by mayhem throughout the Persian Gulf and the rest of the Middle East.

Egypt, under its new Muslim Brotherhood government, backed by a Parliament with Muslim Brotherhood members in almost 50 percent of the seats and Salafist extremists in 24 percent, would immediately denounce the peace treaty with Israel and sever diplomatic relations.

The Syrian civil war, with Iran and Russia on the side of the Assad regime and al-Qaida now in the mix of revolutionary forces in the uprising against Damascus, would quickly assume regional dimensions.

Israel has occupied Syria’s Golan Heights since the 1967 war and the West Bank since the 1973 war. The emergence of an independent Palestinian state between the Jordan River and Israel is already more geopolitical mirage than practical possibility.

And if the United States is involved in military operations against Iran, Egypt’s new Muslim government would probably close the Suez Canal as well. It was blocked during the 1967 war and didn’t reopen until 1975.

Estranged during the 30-year Mubarak era, Iran and Egypt recently agreed to resume full diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level.

All six also know that Iran still commands formidable asymmetrical retaliatory capabilities — from the mining of the Strait of Hormuz through which pass daily 25 percent of the world’s seaborne oil supplies; to an 844-mile northern coastline in the gulf within easy missile reach of Qatar where a forward CENTCOM headquarters is based and where the longest airstrip in the Middle East allows U.S. bombers to refuel; to Bahrain, headquarters for the U.S. Navy 5th Fleet, where the majority of the population is Shiite Muslim closely affiliated with Iran’s Shiite regime.

Iran can also activate terrorist networks against Israel and against U.S. travelers in the Middle East and Europe.

These Iranian retaliatory openers would be sufficient to skyrocket oil prices into the stratosphere — and tip the balance in the United States, United Kingdom, and European countries from recession to depression.

Youth unemployment levels in Greece, Spain, and Italy are already at explosive levels. Almost 50 percent of those younger than 25 are jobless in Spain.

“We have to face openly the possibility of a euro breakup,” says Erkki Tuomioja, Finland’s veteran foreign minister and a member of the Social Democratic Party, one of six parties that make up the coalition government.

Israeli opinion is also sharply divided on the need to bomb Iran and the prospect of retaliatory consequences.

Yadlin, one of the pilots who took part in the 1981 attack on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor, said Israel is fully capable of hitting the nerve center of Iran’s nuclear complex, but that Israel would need U.S. support “both the day after and the decade after a strike.”